Another Whole Nother Story Page 7

  “If anyone owes anyone a debt of gratitude, it’s us,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “We can’t thank you enough for helping us out.”

  “No problem at all.” He moved to the bin and slid out four rods of raw bronze, ideal for heating with a homemade blowtorch and reattaching ceilings to broken time machines.

  “Does this mean we’re going home now?” asked Teddy.

  “Soon,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours, so we should probably wait until tomorrow, get an early start.” Mr. Cheeseman paid Mr. Lumley and thanked him once more. He turned to leave and then, just as quickly, turned back. “One more thing. Could you direct us to the nearest hotel?”

  “Hotel?” said Mr. Lumley.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Or an inn or …”

  “Ah, yes. An ordinary. There’s one just down the road. But you can’t stay there.”

  “We can’t?” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Why not?”

  “Because tonight you’ll be staying with me.”

  “Oh,” said Ethan. “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t I look sure?”

  “Actually, you look mad,” said Teddy.

  Mr. Lumley squeezed the trace of a smile onto his grimacing face. “Come back in an hour. I’ll take you out to my house. You see, unlike yourself,” he said to Ethan, “my wife and I were never blessed with children of our own. She’s a good woman and she loves to cook, so I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Starving,” said Teddy. “We haven’t eaten in hundreds of years.”

  Read This Advice Before iT is Stolen

  When recently polled, thirty-two percent of Americans said that crime was a major concern. When polled at gunpoint that number rose considerably.

  It would be fair to say that crime has been around for as long as there have been criminals, maybe even longer. You can bet that thousands of years before people were stealing cars, a few dishonest cavemen were involved in grand theft wheel. This led to the invention of the club and to the formation of the first caveman police force.

  For these cave cops, fighting crime was not easy, as they had to do so without the help of DNA evidence, fingerprint technology, or pants. Just try chasing a suspect over a volcano while wearing only a loincloth.*

  In addition, police sketch artists were forced to create their drawings of suspects with only a chisel and a large flat rock.

  “Does this look like the man who stole your water buffalo?”

  “Yes, my water buffalo was stolen by a stick figure.”

  Of course, today’s policemen have all kinds of modern equipment available to them, including pants. Still they struggle to get criminals off the streets and back onto the sidewalks where they belong.

  So what is to be done to reduce crime? Some say we need to lock criminals up and throw away the key. Others insist the key should go into the recycling bin to help save the environment.

  Still, there are those who believe we should do more to rehabilitate criminals. Of course, some criminals, like the evil Mr. 5, are so incredibly evil that there is no chance of them ever becoming good, law-abiding citizens. I would thereby advise those in the judicial system that people like him should be sent to prison for a very long time, should never be allowed to escape, and, by all means, should never be given access to a fully operational time machine.

  *Only joking. Please do not try.

  Chapter 7

  Since he had served twelve years in prison followed by three years as assistant to Professor Boxley, it had now been fifteen years since Mr. 5, now known as Gateman Nametag, had seen the Cheeseman family, though it had been only a few hours since they had last seen him, tied up in the back of an old school bus. Welcome to the strange and fascinating world of time travel.

  Those fifteen years had not been terribly kind to Gateman, particularly to his aching joints. And you can be assured that trudging through an overgrown forest in fancy buckled shoes did them no favors. Adding to his growing discomfort, he recently learned that he had a nasty allergy to smog-free air, which caused his nose to run and his eyes to water.

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” he sniped at Professor Boxley, whose nervous eyes were shifting back and forth between a map in one hand and a compass in the other. “My feet are killing me.” Gateman sneezed so hard both his wig and toupee nearly fell off. This could be a problem. Though he complained about having to wear his 1668 getup, he was secretly very happy, as it would provide a means of hiding his true identity from the Cheesemans when he eventually ran into them, an event he looked forward to like no other.

  “Quit your complaining. I’m trying to concentrate,” Professor Boxley shot back. He turned his attention back to the map, which was—typical of maps of that era—not terribly accurate. “It looks like there’s a small town called Shattuckton about two miles away. It appears to be the only town in the immediate area.”

  This bit of news was followed by much grumbling. “I thought I asked you to quit complaining,” said Professor Boxley.

  “I didn’t say anything,” insisted Gateman.

  Another bit of grumbling and suddenly the two men realized they were not alone in that forest. They turned—just their heads—slowly in the direction of the noise. Standing a mere thirty feet away at the other side of a clearing was a rather large, rather irritated black bear. The two men spoke in whispers, scarcely daring to breathe. “Is that a bear?” said Gateman from the corner of his mouth.

  “Either that or the world’s largest chipmunk,” said Professor Boxley. “What should we do?”

  “Let’s see. I think I remember reading that if attacked by a bear, you should punch him in the nose and swim away as fast as you can.”

  “That’s a shark, not a bear.”

  Just then Gateman remembered something—a certain bit of carry-on baggage he had brought along on this little trip through time. With trembling hands, he reached beneath his jacket and removed a handgun from its shoulder holster, careful not to move too suddenly. Professor Boxley seemed even more alarmed to see the gun than he had been to see the bear. “Why do you have a gun?” he hissed.

  “I think, considering the circumstances, the better question might be, Why don’t you?” Gateman turned to face the bear, whose grumblings had escalated into a growing crescendo of vicious snarling. Gateman raised the gun toward the bear, his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold on to it.

  “You’re not going to shoot him, are you?” asked the professor.

  “Well I’m certainly not going to dance with him.” Gateman’s fiercely vibrating finger squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet screaming through the air, a good ten feet above the bear’s head. Even though the bullet went nowhere near him, it is a well-known fact that some bears are frightened by loud noises. This bear, however, was not one of them. Rather than skulk away, the bear rose up on his hind legs and let out a roar that nearly blew the men’s wigs off.

  “Run!” shouted Professor Boxley.

  In the following split second Gateman had the following thoughts:

  1) Bears are able to run faster than humans.

  2) With Gateman’s achy joints and those terrible buckled shoes, Professor Boxley would be able to run faster than he would.

  3) The bear would most likely eat only one of them—the one he caught first.

  4) Unless Gateman thought of something quickly, that person would be him.

  In another split second, Gateman processed all of this information, then bent down, picked up a large stick, and hit Professor Boxley squarely on the knee.

  “Aaaiiieeeee!” the professor wailed as Gateman took off running through the woods just as fast as his achy joints and his pointy buckled shoes would carry him. The professor took off after Gateman, limping as he went, and the bear took off after them both. “Bear!” yelled the professor. “Everyone out of the forest!” The ground trembled and tree branches snapped like chopsticks as the bear lumbered indelicately but with remarkable speed toward the professor. />
  The snarling grew louder and the ground vibrated more and more violently as the bear closed in. Professor Boxley tried to prepare himself mentally for what it might be like to slide a few notches down the food chain and become dinner for an animal with a brain the size of a pomegranate. Any hope that he had of escaping his oversized pursuer was dashed when his badly bruised knee gave out and he tumbled to the ground in a heap of buckled shoes, brass buttons, and artificial hair. He lay there, eyes clamped shut, preparing to be devoured. He covered his head and waited for the onslaught of teeth and claws. He waited, but it never came. Slowly he opened his eyes to see the bear a good twenty feet away. Between the professor and the bear stood a smallish girl dressed in buckskin and a dark blue baseball cap. Standing just behind her was a small brown fox, growling angrily.

  The bear paced back and forth with a look on his furry face that seemed to say, “Not you again.” The girl waved her hands above her head and yelled something in a language unfamiliar to the professor but, apparently, quite familiar to the bear, who decided he had had enough of this. Begrudgingly, he turned and ambled off in the direction he had come.

  “O-nen,” said the girl in the blue baseball cap to the slowly retreating bear. She then turned and walked toward a very traumatized Professor Boxley. “Are you hurt?” Digs trotted over and gave the professor’s hand a good sniff.

  “No, I’m okay,” said the professor, failing to mention that he had just been kneecapped by his trusted assistant. “You saved my life.”

  Big responded with a quick one-shoulder shrug. “When it comes to bears you must be clear as to who is the boss. Nothing more, really.” She extended her hand and helped pull the professor to his feet. “And, whatever you do, never run away.”

  If the professor knew nothing about bears, he knew even less about sports. For if he had any knowledge of the topic whatsoever, he would have known that, in 1668, baseball had not yet been invented, which would make the existence of baseball bats, baseball gloves, and baseball caps, like the one Big was wearing, completely unnecessary. But because he knew nothing about sports, he thought little of the blue hat with the white letter P.

  “May I ask what it is that you’re doing way out here in the woods?” said Big.

  “We’re lost,” said the professor, looking about nervously. He brushed the dirt and leaves from his pants and jacket.

  “We?”

  “My assistant and I. He’s run off, I’m afraid.” The professor carefully examined the forest in the direction Gateman had run but saw no sign of him. “We were looking for a friend.” Professor Boxley removed the magazine from his pocket and displayed it for Big. “This man.”

  Big crinkled her forehead and brought her fingers to the magazine cover. “This is a strange painting.”

  “Yes,” said the professor. “It’s a new style. All the rage in Europe.”

  “And this man is your friend?”

  “Yes,” said the professor. Though the gentleman featured in this new style of painting was twenty years younger, with a thin, wiry build and jet-black hair without the slightest sign of gray, he bore a remarkable resemblance to one Ethan Cheeseman.

  “He looks very much like someone I met on the trail today,” said Big.

  This bit of information caused the professor’s heart to palpitate. “Was his name Ethan? Ethan Cheeseman?”

  “I did not learn his name,” said Big. “Only the names of his children, Chip, Penny, and Teddy Roosevelt.”

  “Teddy Roosevelt?” said the professor excitedly. “Yes, that’s got to be him. Do you know where I might find him?”

  Before Big could answer, a sharp noise rang out in the distance. Professor Boxley recognized the sound right away as gunfire; one shot followed another.

  In his hurry to avoid direct contact with the bear’s claws, jaws, taste buds, and digestive tract, Gateman Nametag now found himself standing alone in the middle of the woods with no map, no compass, and absolutely no idea where he was.

  “Help!” he shouted, firing another shot into the air. “Can anybody hear me? Heeelp!” Just as he was about to fire off a fourth shot he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he found that something to be Professor Acorn Boxley, his arms folded across his chest. Standing next to the professor were Big and Digs.

  “If it isn’t my loyal assistant,” said Professor Boxley, sounding none too pleased.

  “Well, what do you know,” said Gateman, chuckling nervously as he holstered the smoking gun. “You’re … still alive. That’s great news.”

  “Yes,” said Professor Boxley. “Isn’t it?”

  “Hey, come on,” said Gateman. “You would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes.”

  “I was in your shoes. About fifteen minutes ago. Remember?”

  “Yes,” said Gateman, all but giving up hope of being able to justify his actions. He lowered his eyes in a practiced show of remorse. “I guess I panicked. I’m terribly sorry for anything that might be interpreted as me running away and leaving you to be eaten by a bear. But you see, I knew that someone as smart as yourself would find a way out of the predicament, and, as it turns out, I was right.”

  Professor Boxley sighed. “Okay. Just don’t let it happen again.” For a scientific genius, the professor could be quite gullible.

  “So tell me,” said Gateman. “By what brilliant means did you manage to escape?”

  “There was nothing brilliant about it,” said Professor Boxley. “This is Big. She and her little friend saved my life.” Professor Boxley filled in the details of his narrow escape from death but Gateman failed to hear a single word he said. He was busy staring at that baseball cap. He hadn’t seen it in fifteen years. It hadn’t seen him in several hours.

  “Where did you get that hat?” asked Gateman, interrupting Professor Boxley in mid-story.

  “From a friend,” said Big. Though she had just met him, she knew right away that she did not like this man with the hollow cheeks and clammy forehead.

  “That hat belongs …” He stopped short. If he told Professor Boxley the hat belonged to Mr. Cheeseman’s elder son, the professor would want to know how he came by this little bit of information. “That hat belongs … in a museum. It must be one of the first baseball caps ever made.”

  “Would you forget about the hat?” snipped Professor Boxley. “We’ve got more important things with which to concern ourselves. Big is a professional guide. I’ve hired her to take us to the nearest town. The same town to which she took our good friend Ethan Cheeseman earlier today.”

  “Well then,” said Gateman with a smile. “I suggest we get moving.”

  The water shimmered in the soft, late-day sun as a weathered gray rowboat of guaranteed buoyancy, powered by a man with the strength of two and a half men, glided into Boston Harbor. In modern times, the harbor would be crowded with ships of all types and sizes, but in 1668, other than a few small fishing boats, there were only two of any size. Long wooden vessels they were, with towering masts and each armed with an impressive battery of cannons. One was a Dutch Fleut, the other an East Indiaman.

  “Well, would you look at that?” said Jibby of the fleut. “If it isn’t the Sea Urchin.” The ship’s prow featured a mermaid carved in wood. The mermaid’s paint had chipped and faded and one side of her head was completely missing. Cannon fire would be a good guess as to the cause.

  The ship’s sides were stripped of pitch in many places, the bare wood graying and bloating badly. The black flag, which featured the image of a silver ring, hung from the main mast in tatters. “Looks like our old friend the Mailman is in town,” said Jibby.

  Sammy guided the boat to the dock and Aristotle tied it to a pier next to several other boats, slightly larger in size, called tenders—rowboats used to ferry crewmen from the ships in the harbor to the shore and back again. On the dock sat two young boys fishing without much luck, their wooden bucket completely empty. They looked at Jibby and his boatload of misfits with annoyance
for having disturbed the water and perhaps frightened away their dinner. Jibby climbed ashore and gave them a friendly nod, then extended a hand to his crew, beginning with his lovely wife, Juanita.

  “So this is Boston,” said Sammy, looking out at the bustling settlement before them. “Looks like a nice place.”

  “Me gusta,” Juanita agreed.

  “What do we do now?” asked Dizzy.

  “Can’t get to Denmark without a ship,” said Jibby. “I think we should pay a little visit to the Mailman. And I have a pretty good idea where to find him.”

  Just a stone’s throw away (perhaps two stones, depending on who was doing the throwing, but certainly no more than two), up the narrow cobblestone street that ran along the water, sat a white plaster-covered ordinary. Above the door, a large wooden sign suspended by chains marked it as THE ACKERMAN INN. It was a sturdy building and quite well insulated. From the street you might think that the establishment was closed or had gone out of business, but when an elderly gentleman with a curly mustache and a slight limp approached the inn and opened its heavy wooden door, the sounds of laughing, arguing, and yelling poured out like water from a hydroelectric dam. When the door swung closed behind the old man, the street quickly became a dry gulch of silence once more.

  Inside the tavern, the air was thick with the stench and pother of seafaring men, all gathered around a table at the center of the room where an arm-wrestling competition was in progress. A crowd of fifty or more encircled the combatants, cheering for the one on whom they had bet their day’s earnings, which for nearly all of them was hometown favorite Haystack Saunders, a man of such excess weight that the overworked wooden stool on which he sat could barely be seen.